Special Report on the Rodney Commission of Inquiry by Shaun Michael Samaroo

Westmaas tells Rodney’s COI…

PNC was paramount to Executive and Judiciary

DISTINGUISHED Guyanese historian and university professor in the U.S., Dr. Nigel Westmaas, yesterday said he fought against the loss of civil liberties, denial of democratic rights and restricted freedom of movement of Guyanese, under the repressive Government of the People’s National Congress (PNC).Testimonies from witnesses show that the PNC political party played a crucial role in Guyana’s tyrannical socio-political and economic climate that resulted in the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney, the famous Guyanese thinker.
Westmaas said Guyana suffered from a repressive, suppressive atmosphere under the paramount rule of the PNC Government, during the time that Dr. Rodney died in a vicious bomb blast as he sat in his car in Georgetown.
Currently visiting Guyana from his post as professor at New York’s Binghamton University, Westmaas appeared at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry to join a list of outstanding Guyanese citizens who agreed to provide evidence before the historic Presidential Commission. The professor has accumulated a wealth of information around the life and times of Dr. Rodney, through research and personal experience as a political activist, and agreed to share his research with the Commission.

Westmaas testified that the first edition of the WPA party media organ, a newspaper called Dayclean, had to be printed in Trinidad and Tobago. However, on the day that 10,000 copies of the newly minted publication landed on the shores of Guyana, the oppressive, despotic PNC Government issued an order through the Official Gazette banning all political publication that came to the country, claiming the contents threatened national security. The Customs and Excise Department confiscated the 10,000 copies of the Dayclean newspaper, and proceeded to burn them, Westmaas said, noting that the gesture reminded him of the horrible behaviour of the German Nazis.

Westmaas is writing a book on the period under probe at the Commission, and he wrote his Doctorate thesis based on research for the period.
The Presidential Commission, comprising Chairman Sir Richard Cheltenham of Barbados, Seenath Jairam of Trinidad and Tobago, and Jacqueline Samuels-Brown of Jamaica, is probing how and why the brilliant historian and world famous political leader Dr. Rodney was killed on June 13, 1980.
Dr. Rodney was leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), and Dr. Westmaas detailed the causes for the WPA to engage in a “civil rebellion” against the authoritarian PNC Government.

DAYCLEAN BURNED
Westmaas testified that the first edition of the WPA party media organ, a newspaper called Dayclean, had to be printed in Trinidad and Tobago. However, on the day that 10,000 copies of the newly minted publication landed on the shores of Guyana, the oppressive, despotic PNC Government issued an order through the Official Gazette banning all political publication that came to the country, claiming the contents threatened national security.
The Customs and Excise Department confiscated the 10,000 copies of the Dayclean newspaper, and proceeded to burn them, Westmaas said, noting that the gesture reminded him of the horrible behaviour of the German Nazis.
Westmass was a young WPA activist, and was on a party team that circulated the Dayclean, spreading news and information about the dictatorial and suppressive state of the society under the PNC Government.
He said Guyana lacked freedom of the press at that time, and citizens also suffered severe economic and other hardships, including a State crackdown on civil liberties, and a restriction on freedom of movement.
The well-dressed, confident Westmass said the WPA suffered many injustices meted out to its members by Police and State organs.
He said the WPA got birthed in 1974 as an “alliance” of several national organisations that rose up in civil rebellion against the beginnings of brutal repression and conspiratorial undemocratic rule of the PNC Government. The groups included an Afro-centric organisation headed by Eusi Kwayana, an Indo-centric organisation headed by Moses Bhagwan, and The New World group which included eventual Founder of the Stabroek News David de Caires and other outstanding citizens.

CIVIL ACTION
The WPA was involved in “civil” action to restore citizen freedoms, democratic practices and freedom of the press, Westmaas said.
He denied the WPA ever engaged in an armed struggle, and said it was impossible for the WPA to “arrest head of Government, Forbes Burnham”, as Burnham possessed almost “supreme” judicial and political power, more than any leader of the Commonwealth.
Much of the day saw Commission Counsel Latchmie Rahamat lead Westmaas through his Witness Statement, with the latter part of the day’s hearing taken up with short cross examination sessions by Counsel Christopher Ram, Counsel Keith Scotland and Counsel Andrew Pilgrim.
The last few minutes saw Counsel Basil Williams, representing the defensive PNC party, introduce a notorious PNC party document, titled ‘The Sophia Declaration’, and proceeded to ask Westmaas about what the word paramount encompasses.
Williams has seen the PNC party, his client, become the main antagonist in the Commission’s work so far, and seeks to defend the organisation’s role in the despotic, repressive regime that ruled Guyana for 28 years. Westmaas said the WPA assembled into an alliance before Dr. Rodney returned to Guyana, because the PNC Government had massively rigged the 1973 national elections, which marked the shock of the dictatorship and the denial of democratic rights to Guyanese citizens.
Williams’ cross examination broke around 2 pm as the Commission adjourned for the day, resuming this morning at 9:30 am. Williams is claiming that the PNC’s document, the Sophia Declaration, showed that the PNC held paramountcy only over the Government of the day, and not the State. He claimed the State constitutes Government, the Judiciary and the Legislature, and the Party declared itself paramount only over Government, not the Judiciary or Parliament.
But Westmaas disagreed, saying he knew of several cases, including in his extensive, detailed and thorough research for papers and books he wrote, where the Judiciary came under PNC paramount dictat.
Westmaas read a statement from his research that showed the PNC made a declaration that because it was in existence as a Party before the PNC Government, the Government was subjected to the PNC. The statement referred to a Biblical passage where God said “before the Creation was, I am”. The PNC thus declared itself, “before the Government, the Party”.
Williams said he would “take my time” to cross examine Westmaas today, with WPA executive member Tacuma Ogunseye on standby to resume the Witness Box and be cross examined by Williams.
Westmaas has to leave for the US to resume his university professor post shortly, and only has this week to complete his testimony.
His historical research, indepth role in the WPA, and intellectual interest in Dr. Rodney and the period of his life and political work provide deep insight into how and why the suppressive PNC Government wanted to get rid of Dr. Rodney.
Attorney Pilgrim, representing the Rodney family, including widow Dr. Patricia Rodney, at the Commission, noted that distinguished Caribbean writer, and friend of Dr. Rodney, CLR James, had warned the WPA leader that he “would be assassinated” by the repressive PNC regime.
Westmaas said he knew that Dr. Rodney and CLR James were close friends, with James a “mentor” of Rodney, along with another Caribbean intellectual stalwart, Lloyd Best.